The Global Plan for Maori Radio

I researched and wrote the Global Plan in the summer of 1986/87, for Prof Whatarangi Winiata at Victoria University. At that time Radio New Zealand was planning to provide a "Maori Programme" on AM frequencies. This was the alternative plan: a network of iwi-based FM stations; more accessible to Maori and closer to the flaxroots.

The Global Plan was picked up by NZ on Air in the early 1990s - but the environment had changed by then, so it was not implemented as envisaged. The Global Plan foresaw an integrated system; comprised of small, medium and large radio stations, developed and promoted by a BCNZ-style agency. The NZ on Air funding model permitted many more smaller stations to emerge, but in a less structured way. Maori radio therefore developed with perhaps greater diversity, and accessibility than even the Global Plan had envisaged. However, there was less funding for each station, little support for professional development, and a less coherent broadcasting system.

The maps of major Iwi/Rununga groupings, in Appendix Four, were an interesting exercise: in 1986 there were no official maps of Aotearoa/New Zealand from a Maori perspective - I had to make them up myself, based on a map that Lands and Survey had, upon which a kaumatua had drawn the boundaries in crayon.

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Treaty Claim on the Radiofrequency Spectrum

I spent the summer of 1990/91 working on the Treaty Claim on the Airwaves. Three months work resulted in just two pages of text! My contribution was the first part of the Statement of Claim, in Appendix 2 of the report.

Link to Waitangi Tribunal Report

Not many people understand the Radiofrequency claim. It was founded on the previous Te Reo Maori claim, which established the Maori language as a taonga for the purpose of Article Two of the Treaty of Waitangi.

The Radiofrequency claim insisted that, if the protection of Maori language was guaranteed under Article Two, then Maori must have the right to broadcast on radio and television. How else could Maori be said to "possess" their language, in the 20th and 21st Century, without such rights?

Maori Television

I researched and wrote this for the New Zealand Maori Council in 1991, while working for the Maori Council as an analyst on the "Broadcasting Assets Case". This report was written after Justice McGechan had delivered his verdict in the High Court, before the case went to appeal. A summary of McGechan's judgement is included in the appendices.

I recall Piripi Walker saying at the time that we wouldn't get Maori television for at least ten years. It was thirteen years later that a viable channel was finally established, on 28 March 2004. The Crown's assumptions that Maori television would use UHF frequencies were well out-of-date by then: technology had moved on, and digital broadcasting by satellite would prove to be a more effective transmission option.

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Transferable Maori Language Quotas

I wrote an article for this edition of Continuum (Vol 10:1 1995/96). I am grateful for the assistance of the NZ Broadcasting School, where I had been tutoring in 1993 and 1994).

The article discusses how it would be possible to create an "efficient" allocation of Maori language on mainstream television. It was really to demonstrate that a preference for neo-liberal economics ought not excuse policy-makers from providing Maori language in primetime: if there were a will, there is a way!

This was written for a "Cultural Studies" audience, so I had some fun packaging the economic ideas to suit that style of discourse. The section on what constitutes a taonga was particularly interesting to research.

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